Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is preparing to launch Fram2, the first human spaceflight to fly over both the North and South Poles, funded by cryptocurrency.
The mission is funded and commanded by cryptocurrency investor Chun Wang. It will lift off from Florida on Monday at 9:46 p.m. local time on a Falcon 9 rocket.
The four-person crew will spend three to five days in space, flying over the poles and conducting research on how spaceflight affects human health.
Wang, who co-founded F2Pool, one of the largest Bitcoin mining pools, expressed his excitement, saying, “My own journey has been shaped by lifelong curiosity and a fascination with pushing boundaries.” As a child, he recalled staring at world maps and wondering about the “blank white space” at the bottom.
Wang will be joined by Jannicke Mikkelsen, a Norwegian director and cinematographer, Eric Philips, an Australian adventurer, and Rabea Rogge, a German graduate student. All three are first-time astronauts eager to contribute to the mission’s research and exploration.
Mikkelsen is especially eager to capture stunning images, saying, “I’m looking forward to being the first human in history to point my camera at the North Pole and South Pole from space.”
After their journey, the crew will land in the ocean off the U.S. West Coast. SpaceX executive Jessica Jensen said the goal is to make space travel as easy as air travel so that anyone can fly.
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